We’re back baby. Back back back. Leaving Elvis in the army we journey across space and time and open the doors of the Aftertardis to find ourselves in….1982. The last splutterings of post-punk and disco are petering out, and the charts are firmly in the grip of the ‘Second British Invasion’ – the Spandaus, Durans, Culture Clubs, Human League, ABC etc. Metal, indie, Sunny Ade, reggae, britfunk and lots more to get stuck into. Usual Almanac rules – anything released in the year. I was 17 and so would have been seeing bands – from memory I would have seen possibly the Jam at Stafford Bingley Hall and New Order at Hanley Victoria Hall amongst others. I was also a card-carrying Hacienda member and spent some great nights with 50 other lost souls on ‘club nights’ dancing to Simple Minds and Bauhaus. They played cartoons on giant screens and for a time there was a cafe where you could get chips and beans. Ah the legend. As ever we kick off with some choice stories from NME’s The Rock and Roll Years.
Buy No More Records?
Renting records could be the thing of the future if a new Japanese scheme catches on. In Tokyo, the owner of a major chain of record stores has already changed his retail outlets into musical lending libraries. And in New Yor,, there was a near riot when one record store decided to hire out its stock. The scheme works in a similar way to video hire, but whereas the retailer would make more money by renting than selling albums, the manufacturer only makes money on the first sale.
With blank cassette sales increasing yearly, it is easy to see how wide a method could tie in which home taping. And with record prices oint through the roof, its possible that such a scheme could shake the record industry to its foundations. Whether the industry is ready for that remains to be seen.
Silence Is Golden. The One-Side Single
The latest music biz gimmick is the one-sided single- first of which is Bow Wow Wow’s I Want Candy. The intention is to cut the price fo a single, but the purchase price is in fact, rather more than 50% of the two-sided version. The sleeve simply boasts the message ‘Special Edition – Special Price’ and there is, no information as to how many buyers have returned the single in disgust at the tactic. Surprisingly enough, the idea originated from the RCA’s marketing department and not Bow Wow Wow manager Malcolm Mclaren, who’s insisted its repressed with a proper B-side. Meanwhile the single has sold 50,000 in the week prior to release in advance orders.
Joe Don’t Go
Punk survivors the Clash were forced to postpone a month of dates in their ‘Know Your Rights’ tour when lead vocalist Joe Strummer disappeared. Manager Bernard Rhodes said: ‘I feel he’s probably gone away for a serious re-think’…
Journalist Steve Taylor claimed he had shared a compartment with Strummer on a train from London to Paris – and sure enough it was in Paris that the singer was located at the end of the month. Ironically, after they had fulfilled their headline sport at Holland’s Lochem Festival, the band was further rocked when drummer Topper Headon announced that he was leaving…for good.
Strummer’ explanation for his own behaviour: ‘Its very much like being a robot, being in a group…rather than go barmy…its better to do what I did…I just go up and went to Paris.
Zappa – USA is Best
With a hit single recorded with daughter Moon ‘Valley Girl’ – and a top 50 album ‘Ship Arriving To Save A Drowning Witch’ FRank Zappa is having his most successful year for some time.
Now he states that he intends to stay in the US for the foreseeable future: ‘Europe’s too expensive to play, too expensive to travel around and with the anti-American sentiment around, it is hard to go onstage and do what you do.
I think three people got killed during our last show in Palermo, Italy. For some unknown reason the cops started firing teargas….some of the kids started shooting back.’
Seventies glam rockers Slade are facing trouble with their new album ‘Til Deaf Us Do Part’ with dealers refusing to stock it because of an ‘offensive’ picture of a nail piercing an ear drum.
When is a new single not a new single? When its The Beatles “Movie Medley’, excerpts from seven of their film songs on one 45rpm single.
Contender for best Fall album ever, Hex Enduction Hour
https://youtu.be/fLsqmEc8l0I
Booo-oooring! They’re still wearing flared trousers!
…. this was the event of 1982. More important than the Falklands, the World Cup and the rise of Tight Fit combined.
Have we got a video?
No, just a little white dot.
It’s a sign. It means something really heavy
It means “there’s no more telly. It’s time to go to bed”
Sleep gives you cancer, everybody knows that
…so the music news stories of 1982 are Spotify and ITunes?
Guess it shows that the renting vs owning argument within the industry has long long roots…
Have I missed something? What happened to 1959 to 1981?
You hibernated. It’s March now
@bungliemutt the consensus more or less was to not zip randomly around every week, but not to just go forwards one year a week either. As a ‘third way’ we’re taking a 3-5 year block at a time. So this block is ‘peak 80’s’ from Wham and the Falklands through Live Aid to the start of rave.
Phew! Thank God for that. I thought it was my brain fade kicking in.
Some of the albums I was listening to in 1982 are still very much among my favourites, especially Beautiful Vision and One From The Heart. But my iTunes informs me that the song I listen to most from that year is Big Science by Laurie Anderson.
I always took it to have a similar theme (and similar sarcastic title) to Red Guitars’ Good Technology, only far less literal.
Oh, we had a record store in Stockholm that rented out records, I went there once and got Pete Shelley’s Homosapiens album. That’s from 1981, and the video made it a hit in Sweden when Swedish TV did the famous (to my generation) “Kiss Lucia Goodnight” music video all-night marathon in December -81 on Lucia Friday, to keep the kids at home and not out getting drunk on the town, as is the tradition among teens… Everyone with a VHS taped it, including my best friend at school (except they had the doublesided video cassette player; “Video 2000”) We must have watched that tape a thousand times (rather than going to school…)
You payed full price (minus perhaps a little for it being many times second hand) for the record and got most of it back on return. But I didn’t return the Pete Shelley album. For the same reason why I never use the library anymore – if I like it, I want to keep it! And I was too lazy to go back, get some money back and buy a copy in mint condition from a regular record store. The sleeve was slightly scuffed, but the record was fine, so I couldn’t be bothered.
But I never went back to that store again, realising that renting just wasn’t for me…
(Yes, wrong year but I’m posting it anyway:)
To make up for that, the track I’ll always associate most with the year 1982 is “Mama used to Say” by Junior. I was in Torquay that summer, and when that track came on at the clubs, everybody went absolutely crazy on the dance floor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwTTGnDcwoA
@locust that in my mind belongs to a particularly type of pop-funk from this time that is basically a so-so song with a monster bass line. See also this from this year
Hmm, I half disagree with you, the Junior track relies a lot on its bass line, but I think the song is a lot better than just so-so, and his vocal performance also help.
The Rushen track; yes, ironically that would be totally forgettable if it wasn’t for the bass…
@locust synchronicity strikes again – this was on TOTP 1982 recently – a rather gimmicky (Disco Duck style chorus) pop-funk number about which the only likeable thing is an irresistible bass line. Not heard this in thirty years…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SNjdYCRJvk
I’d never heard that one before (UK hit only?) @moseleymoles.
At first I found it to be incredibly clunky and annoying, but after a while it kind of grew on me in some strange trick of repetition…after a while I even liked the Disco Duck voices! Unfortunately it didn’t stop after four minutes and leave me in that magnaminous mood, so by the end I wanted roast duck for my dinner…
More proof that great tracks can be as long as they want, but novelty style hits should be short and sweet and not outstay their welcome!
Homosapien has some of the finest YouTube comments I’ve ever seen.
I noticed that too. 🙂
The cover CD for “Electronic Sound” Issue 21 has a new crunchier version by Pete Shelley with A1 People.
Supposedly it’s on a Spotify playlist of theirs, but the URL they printed in the mag doesn’t work. But you can find the track on Spotify under A1 People. It’s on their 2013 album “Sing & Play”
Correction: “Sing & Play” is not in fact an A1 People album but the “Electronic Sound” cover CD including the A1 People/Shelley track and all the other ones by different artists
1982 was the year I bought my first album.
Iron Maiden – Number Of The Beast
The Jam split at the end of the year.
Their last single was the slightly lacklustre Beat Surrender.
It was originally planned to be Solid Bond In Your Heart (later to be The Style Councils 4th single).
The demo version includes a middle eight which was lifted and grafted into Beat Surrender
Was their last live show on the first episode of The Tube?
That rings a bell.
It’s difficult to overestimate how refreshing the coming of the Tube, and Channel 4 generally, was in 1982.
Countdown, Brookie and lashings of ginger beer.
Wiki says the first episode of The Tube was 5th November and the last Jam tour gig was at Brighton on December 11th.
Their last live TV appearance was indeed the opening night of The Tube.
The closing set was Town Called Malice, Move On Up and Beat Surrender.
Sure they played more than that?
(goes off to Facetube to check)
Edit:
Ghosts, Modern World and In The Crowd were also played some time during the show
The Stranglers returned to the Top 10 for the first time since 1977 with the wistful, waltzy. love letter to heroin.
I always preferred the follow-up
Strange Little Girl
Another “old” punk making a return to the charts was Captain Sensible who (somehow) hit Number 1 with a cover of Happy Talk. This was followed by Wot! which scraped into the Top20, despite being played on an episode of Grange Hill.
The third single of 1982 – Croydon (co-written with Robyn Hitchcock) – failed to chart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9fgS7NjVpY
It would take a few years but Captain Sensible would get his revenge with a little help from his friends in the Tyrol. LasBrassBanda made it very clear to the world what a fine song Wot! was.
I always liked “Wot” anyway, but that is a good alternative version.
I really liked “Glad It’s All Over” too, but that was ’84.
Classic 80s disco drama from Laura Branigan:
(1982 was the year I started to go out dancing in clubs, so that’s the sort of tunes I immediately think of when asked about -82…)
Before going out on a Friday night in 1982, and if you for some strange reason stayed at home, if you lived in Sweden you’d turn the radio on and listen to the show Metropol, bringing the party atmosphere and all of the coolest new hits. Like this one:
(Last Night a DJ Saved My Life – Indeep)
Not The Nine O’Clock News ended on BBC2 after four series.
One of the last shows featured an almost perfect New Romantic parody:
Lufthansa Terminal was an inspired NR band name.
The series ended with the infamous “Kinda Lingers” song – which they were terrified about. As it turned out, a lot of people either didn’t get the joke or pretended not to a la Julian and Sandy. They got away with it to the extent that they even named an album after it.
Not many gig tickets had the year on them in 1982. The ones I still have with the year, or that I know were in 1982 are:
Theatre Of Hate – West Runton Pavilion – 5th March
The Jam – Fair Deal Brixton – 15th March
Alan Vega – The Venue – 1st June
Kid Creole & The Coconuts – The Lyceum – 8th June
Defunkt – The Venue – 25th June
The Clash – Fair Deal Brixton – 10th July
Talking Heads – Wembley Arena – 12h July
Animal Nightlife – Heaven – 26th July
J Walter Negro and The Loose Joints – The Venue – 29th July
The Gun Club – The Venue – 5th October
Kid Creole & The Coconuts – The Lyceum – 11th October
Siouxsie & The Banshees – Hammersmith Palais – 29th November
Grandmaster Flash – The Venue – 4th December
No doubt I went to lots more that I don’t still have tickets for. That is a fair reflection of what I was interested in back then.
1982 is the featured year on BBC4’s TOTP reruns and, whilst I have always remembered that period as rather a golden age of pop, the current phase of repeats has contained some unmitigated shite. This week’s edition had Toto Coelo (binliners and all), The Firm (novelty Arthur Dailey ‘song’), Sheena Easton (weirdly channelling her inner Gary Numan), Boys Town Gang (murdering Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You with the least sexy ‘sexy’ routine you could ever see)…I suppose Yazoo, the brilliant Associates and Dexys at No1, alongside Peel’s caustic presence, did redeem the balance a bit, but every week demonstrates that there was an awful lot of chaff amongst the shiny pop wheat.
I have the 12″ of that Boys Town Gang which is pure disco/HNRG gold – goes on for about 5 years and not a second too long.
Moseley, I miss your TOTP roundups. Hope you do some more.
Well thanks, I kind of miss doing them but they did attract some negative comments, so I stopped. Maybe after the Almanac is done we’ll go back. It’s a kind of TOTP golden age at the moment – all the Brit invasion bands clearly loved appearing. I’m a little behind but have just seen Adam Ant redefine the phrase’ Kitchen Sink’ with Goody Two Shoes. And Peter Powell’s jumpers…
1982 is, for me, the year that things start to go to shit on TotP- I mean specifically all the “Wooh!” noises in the crowd -even during the Smiths FFS. (The bored shuffling of the earlier audiences would have been far more appropriate.) That said, I’m looking forward to the Janice & John / Kid & John shows.
I think I have the opposite reaction. I was 9 in 1982, and the current run of TOTPs are giving me seriously Proustian glows (and driving my wife mad). I’m starting to think there was no better time for mainstream pop – there’s mucho dross, but every week seems to throw up two or three classics.
Fun Boy Three were uniformly terrific in this period (with or without Bananarama) and Depeche Mode just look like they were having so much fun (they hadn’t quite learned yet to adopt surly exterior). Nick Heyward has a smile like an angel and tunes from the gods.
Then all of a sudden Dexys appear with Come On Eileen – what an absolute masterpiece, and making such perfect sense in context rather than being diluted by a thousand wedding discos.
The oddities like Da Da Da are incredible. And Adam Ant! That choreographed performance with the female dancers across three different stages was sublime.
By 1982, I’d stopped going to Eric’s. Yazoo hadn’t.
Winter Kills from Upstairs At Eric’s
https://youtu.be/4DvP3N1IeOA
The Who embarked on their ‘farewell’ tour while Roxy Music released their final album, Avalon.
The Main Thing
Tom Waits closed a chapter in his life and started a new one. He met his wife and long-term muse on the set of One For The Heart. It changed his music and his outlook on life.
I Beg Your Pardon with Crystal Gayle
Though the charts were mainly about polished synth pop the world of indie was often angry, loud and political. Anti-Nowhere League were huge, Robert Wyatt was Shipbuilding but at the 6th form Common Room only this lot were on the stereo – yes we were all Rik :
The Blue Mask is probably Lou Reed’s best solo album. It’s definitely his best band: Robert Quine on guitar, Fernando Saunders on bass and Doane Perry on drums.
Here’s the title track.
Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder have a number one single with “Ebony & Ivory”.
This is the first solo number one single for both artists, and is also the 499th single to be Number One.
3 weeks later Eurovision winner Nicole secures the 500th Number One Single with “A Little Peace”
The last good UFO album…Mechanix (shit cover though).
This is a top tune.
Aswad released their finest album, A New Chapter Of Dub.
Dub Fire
Black Uhuru’s Chill Out wasn’t bad either.
Positive
Re: “A New Chapter of Dub”
Yes, that’s a great call, Tigger. Marvellous record. I also like the painting on the front cover a lot.
Have you seen that in about 4 weeks’ time, an Aswad concert DVD from the vintage era is being released: “Live at Rockpalast – Cologne 1980”. Sounds promising.
Both great albums. In fact I gave Chill Out an, er, outing on Friday after work. Very loud. Very good.
It got me thinking what’s happened to that style of reggae. Is there anything new, new bands out there that are ploughing that Marley, Aswad, Misty, Spear, Third World stylee?
Tigs?, Duco?
Well, that’s a good question, Mr. Dog.
Most of the newly released reggae and dub albums I buy are reissues of long-buried or forgotten material from the classic era of – say – 1970 to 1982, which I absolutely adore. I’d be the first to admit that I don’t know the first thing about the Jamaican music scene of 2016.
As regards recent albums … well. if you like the old recordings of Linton Kwesi Johnson and Michael Smith, then I can certainly recommend Roger Robinson’s resonant Trinidadian dub poetry on 2015’s “Dis Side Ah Town”. Quite a few Afterworders rate this album, I know.
The Breadwinners collective in Stockport/Manchester has put out some interesting things as well, the highlight being the magnificent 2012 old-fashioned analogue dub set “Dubs Unlimited”.
Plenty of good UK reggae in a classic style around at the moment. No one with the militancy of Misty or Steel Pulse et al, but they all make a good noise. Anything on the Mr Bongo or Scotch Bonnet labels is going to be worth a listen.
The Skints
Prince Fatty
(one for @bingo-little and, on the off chance, @disappointmentbob there)
Horseman
Hollie Cook
Mungo’s Hi Fi
and as a reward for making it this far, here’s a bonus collaboration between Prince Fatty and Horseman rejoicing in the splendid name of Kung Fu Battle Inna Brixton
See! Kid’s yer man.
My favourite reggae of 2016 is an EP Vin Gordon Heavenless
Not strictly Reggae (a slow dubby electronica) but a fantastic album is Dreadbeat & Paul St. Hilaire’s The Infinity Dub Sessions from a couple of years ago.
A motion from the Handsworth delegates. A straight up party tune.
Wow! That’s great, Thank you all kindly, in particular Mr Dynamite. That’s my early Sunday morning listening sorted out.
No worries, Mr Dog. The whole of that Prince Fatty Versus The Drunken Gambler album (the last clip I posted) is on Bandcamp. I’ve had it on three times tonight. It’s a brilliant album, especially the version of Got Your Money.
oooh, seconded
Blancmange. Probably the best synth duo around at the time.
(Living On The Ceiling)
..I’m up the bloody tree.
Hiding from your questions.
Questions you won’t ask.
“Why am I up the tree?” you say.
“Why are you down there?” I say.
(Feel Me)
“Here comes a love song, there goes a banister”
“Happy Families” was a pretty good album. The next one “Mange Tout”, from ’84, was better though.
I was listening to Happy Families the other week. By wonderful coincidence I was listening to Blancmange whilst eating trifle. A most satisfying turn of events.
Angel Delight Shirley?
Agree on all of that. Mange Tout is a very satisfying album. I tend to skip over Murder and See the Train but the rest is really top-notch.
I saw them live a few times and the bass on songs like Gods Kitchen was as loud a noise as I have ever hoyd.
The Sisters Of Mercy were beginning to hit their stride
You’ll be hearing plenty more from them in the next few entries in this series…
Did someone say entries?
(okay, 1980 really, but there was a version on the ‘Press The Eject And Give Me The Tape’ live album from 1982, so there).
82 was massive for me, as it was the year I switched from predominately buying 45s to LPs. And what a great stack of pop LPs there were:
Lexicon Of Love
The Golden Age Of Wireless
Tin Drum
New Gold Dream
Too Rye Ay
Upstairs At Eric’s
A Kiss In The Dreamhouse
New Order’s (hard to get) Mini Album
Combat Rock…
Although I missed out on the best one of the lot, Orange Juice’s You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever, which I only caught up on years later.
82 was also the year of the greatest single ever.
Altogether now –
“A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind…”
Point of order, M’lud. The superbly brilliant Tin Drum was released in 1981.
Well I stand corrected. Next you’ll be telling me there was no objective empirical evidence to support the assertion that David Sylvian was, at that time, “The Most Beautiful Man In The World”.
Well, far be it for me to say so, but in my humble opinion I think you’ll find that was me.
Donald Fagen’s first solo album “The Nightfly” was released.
Included were “The Goodbye Look” and a magnificent Leiber/Stoller cover, “Ruby Baby”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G187v1HEjqs
Up
Indeed!
I can remember adverts for this album in “Sounds” but not having a clue as to who he was being a 13 year old and into metal.
Only years later did I discover the lp and fall in love with it
“New Frontier” is the song for me
I was looking for you on the three albums to soundtrack your life thread. I hoped you’d wax lyrical about The Nightfly.
Yes sorry about that
May go back to that thread and rectify the situation!
Scritti Politti “Songs To Remember”.
Was this the 1981-released single or a new version for the album? I can’t remember.
(The Sweetest Girl)
Have the prog years been dismissed for a reason?
No. read up the thread! We’ll get there don’t you worry.
Bill Nelson “The Love That Whirls (Diary Of a Thinking Heart)”
(Empire Of the Senses)
Perfect Pop?
Haircut 100 – Fantastic Day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaMcATLlrS0
Barbadian Protest Calypso? That you can dance to?
The Mighty Gabby’s “Jack” is all about local Barbadians being denied access to beaches, which were fenced off for the use of tourists only.
Captain Beefheart’s musical swansong, “Ice Cream For Crow” was released in 1982.
Kid Creole & the Coconuts were huge for a while. “Stool Pigeon” did pretty well for them.
This was the dancetastic B-side.
(Double On Back)
What! The b-side to my copy was In The Jungle. I had the picture 7″ (hur)
Unjustly forgotten now, at the time Tropical Gangsters was a very cool album.
You can’t really complain if you buy a single and you get In The Jungle as the B side!
The double 7″ single has “In the Jungle” on the B-side and “He’s Not Such a Bad Guy (After All) (live version)” plus “There But For the Grace Of God Go I (live version)” on the second disc. The 12″ version has “Double On Back” on the B-side. I have both.
The beginning of the ultimate Purple patch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8ut5FsXpa0
…And the album that ate the world.
From a relative quiet year, this is one of the Dame’s best songs of the 80s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpdHMaccjw4
He also did Baal for the BBC, giving rise to possibly his best non-Scary Monsters record of the 80s.
Schindler’s Ark won the Booker Prize, prompting a row over whether it was even a novel or not. Didn’t matter, it was a superb book later filmed and retitled by Spielberg, whose ET was the top grossing film of 82.
In Beatles related matters, the first posthumous Lennon compilation, Collection, was relased, and sold by the bucketload. And Macca released what I think is still one of his better solo albums, Tug Of War (though it does include Ebony and Ivory)
Also, the most pointless Beatles release ever, “The Beatles Movie Medley,” though the terrific “I’m Happy Just To Dance With You” was the b-side. That’s the side I always play. The best b-side of the 1980s?
One plus, its success (Top 10) probably gave a green light to the re-issue of “Love Me Do” in October, and “Please Please Me” in the following January.
You could argue that “Movie Medley” is now one of their rarest records as, to my knowledge, it has never been officially re-released and, frankly, why would it be?!
In which hip-hop turntablism is thrust into the mainstream across Europe and America… by a two-bit Kings Road shopkeeper and the bassist out of Yes.
Their next move, in 1983, was to put a Township Jive record in the top 3.
Early that year, a really REALLY old record* was rereleased for about the 15th time and, rather wonderfully, went to number one… finally the world was ready for Kraftwerk.
Sadly, the fact that they bottled it the year after this means that this is also the year that they went into decline and started to become a heritage act.
(*nearly four years, blooody hell!)
They were a big influence on Afrika Bambaataa and electro. I was completely blown away when I first heard Planet Rock. I can still remember hearing it for the first time on pirate radio on a Sunday afternoon in South London and yelling at one of my house mates to get down stairs immediately and listen to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh1AypBaIEk
Aha! This record also heralds the beginning of the world-conquering Roland TR808 drum machine. It was pretty radical in making little or no attempt to sound like real drums – in fact it made noises that didn’t sound anything like anything (those little ding-ding noises, is that meant to be a cowbell? who knows). Those who know reckon that kick drum to be the most perfect sound ever created – the perfect beat, don’tcha know.
(Actually this might not be a TR808, but it’s definitely a Roland).
Sorry but this has not aged well. At the time, ground-breaking stuff but that was quite a long time ago and technology etc. has moved on considerably.
Sounds very “thin” compared to later efforts I could name but can’t be arsed, and I say this as somebody who bought the 12-inch and, while not regretting it, hasn’t played it for at least 30 years.
“Dated”? I think you mean “vintage”. I often think people like me ‘n’ Moose who love us some classic hip hop are like Dave Bartram doing Top Of The Pops in 75 in brothel creepers and whatever-those-coats-were-called. I recently ran the figures through a supercomputer and it turns out that the sixteen years between Avalanches albums is the same amount of time as the sixteen years between Buddy Holly releasing Heartbeat and Showaddywaddy re-recording it. The ‘Waddywaddy were considered rock ‘n’ roll revivalists – to us kids they were like the scientists making a new T Rex by extracting dinosaur DNA from AMBER. By this reckoning, The Avalanches are Avalanches revivalists…
I make Dave Bartram look like Aidan Turner.
I’ve just discovered that the Leicester Mercury refer to Showaddywaddy as “the crepe crusaders”. Made my bloody day that has.
A mad-scientist geezer called Thomas Dolby released an incredibly ambitious debut album, The Golden Age of Wireless – a minor masterpiece.
A mad geezer called George Clinton whose Parliament / Funkadelic had completely passed me by in the 1970s released the magnificent Loopzilla.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY3sWZ6To1o
Talking of mad scientist, The Scientist won The World Cup in 1982.
Extra Time part 5
I was still smoking “illicit substances” in 1982, so good dub was definitely on my radar.
Scientist was the guy at that time, pretty much.
Splifftastic!!
Ms Breakfast beware – you won’t find One Of Our Submarines Is Missing on the car boot vinly..
If you mean the later UK version of TGAOW, there are plenty knocking about.
The release history of that album is a right old dog’s breakfast.
Like the Stones 60s albums, the music is worth it.
Mmm, breakfast.
I did have a TD LP (The Flat Earth), but I didn’t go much on it, so it got culled.
The Flat Earth is ace!
You should give Wireless a go, there’s more to it than Magnus Pike*
Wind Power – switch off your mind and let your heart decide! (parrp)
(*not often you hear that said in anger)
Never really liked Thomas Dolby until “Aliens Ate My Buick” but that was a bit later.
Pretty surprised that @minibreakfast missed the opportunity to talk about having a “vinly of Dobly”
A warped one would be a wobbly wibbly Dobly vinly.
Undoubtedyl!
And as you all know, Bondi’s finest The Church released their psychedelic pop masterpiece The Blurred Crusade….and this is the very fine You Took. Of course, I didn’t get to hear about it till 1988 but still.
https://youtu.be/QDsyuIZauJU
Adam dismissed his Ants, bar the redoubtable Marco. However our confidence flooded back with his first “solo” single, this gallumphing pop classic which seems to reference the Andrews Sisters, Elvis, Al Green and glam rock. Ace! as we used to say.
https://youtu.be/ybBwCx20_JI
At the time, I could match the dance routine to this step for step. Now I can barely bend over to put the CD on.
I went to see this concert and this song was the one that helped convince me that the leaderless, Vince Clarke-less Depeche Mode would have enough in them to make it to 1983.
https://youtu.be/eQ4lYqM0s60
Some bloke called Eddie Murphy had a minor r&b hit with Boogie In Your Butt
1982 was the last year I went to the movies regularly.
My top three: Cat People, Tootsie and one of my favourites of all time, Blade Runner.
https://youtu.be/ccJJ0uxigVA
1982was the peak year for Madness. Aside from the hit singles, they released two life-affirmingly brilliant albums – the compo Complete Madness (also available on VHS and Betamax!) and the mighty Rise and Fall.
“Our House”, “House Of Fun”, “Driving In My Car”?
What a phenomenal list of singles for just one year. Magnificent!
The magnificent ET was definitely the great success of the year, But I am also rather fond of this film which is set in 1954. Pete O’ Toole pulled all the stops out in the role of an ageing matinee idol.
My favourite year
ET didn’t really hit big in Europe until early 1983. (Ditto Thriller) It also had a long “tail” in cinemas because it wasn’t released on home video for three years.
@kaisfatdad the ever-useful letterboxd tells me that in this year I would have seen in the cinema the afore-mentioned ET and Bladerunner, plus Gandhi, The Wall, An Officer and a Gentleman, and Sophie’s Choice.
We arrived at the cinema 10 mins later for Bladerunner, so missed the first couple of scenes – the rest of the film was spent in a state of slight confusion.
The year also gave us a stone-cold Sci-fi Horror classic in John Carpenter’s The Thing; Peter Greenway’s The Draughtsman’s Contract; and Koyaanisquatsi – which helped turn me, like many others, onto Philip Glass.
And Fanny and Alexander – the only Bergman I love as opposed to like.
Thanks Moseley. A great overview of the year and a useful site which I’ve never heard of. I was impressed, for example, that it had several comments on Natural Sciences (in Spanish): one of my favourite films of last year and not widely known.
Just posted a comment about Letterboxd on my Metaldog Moviegoer site on Facebook.
Fanny and Alexander is the best-known (the only known?) Bergman film among ordinary folk here in Sweden.
Two interesting facts about Letterboxd.
It’s based in Auckland, New Zealand.
It uses crowd-sourced TMDB as IMDB is too expensive.
The more I explore it, the more I like it. It’s certainly broad-ranging.
Arconada…Armstrong!!
Glory days
But the real match of the 1982 world cup was when France somehow managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against Germany in the semifinal. France had that magnificent midfield of Giresse, Tigana and Platini and it was robbery that they didn’t lift the trophy. The match also had THAT foul by Schumacher on Battiston. One of the all time greatest World Cup matches, but with the wrong result
https://youtu.be/1UnMBH3EGWM
Pass The Dutchie by Musical Youth is one of the greatest and most skanktacular number one singles. It’s also, I suspect, one of the most sampled British records by American hip hop artists – the most recent example being on the new A Tribe Called Quest album which came out yesterday.,
1982 also saw the release of the first Street Sounds compilation. Nowadays, with the likes of Spotify et al chucking out weekly playlists at the drop of a hat, the idea of a regular compilation series of new releases doesn’t seem that exciting but in those days, it was brilliant, like an audio version of that month’s Blues & Soul magazine. They really got going in 1983, with practically one new album a month and the launch of the Electro series, but the first one was a cracker, topped off by the ten-minute version of the Peach Boys’ trippy disco classic Don’t Make Me Wait.
https://youtu.be/yK5V7czvpXE
Those albums would cost less than a couple of import 12″ singles, great value. Whether or not they had the rights to issue some of those tracks is another matter, I wasn’t complaining.
Richard & Linda Thompson released “Shoot Out the Lights”, their final album as a couple, and set off on a US tour marked by onstage sniping and fighting between the couple.
Richard had told her a little before the tour that he was leaving her for Nancy Covey, his present wife, who he had fallen for on a solo US tour between the recording of the album and the duo tour. Linda insisted on coming on the tour and performing her stuff, although she wasn’t in a very stable state, having also given birth not long before.
In 1982 XTC released the sensational album English Settlement.
I was eight in 1982 and my two favourite records, Golden Brown and Senses Working Overtime, were both about taking drugs.
I didn’t stand a bloody chance.
Up
Meanwhile, in Sweden:
2×45 by Cabaret Voltaire came out this year in its hard not to damage ‘envelope’ sleeve. And it had the original version of this on it.
4th April 1982 I was 16 and playing Sunday football. After a fairly innocuous tackle I snapped both tibia and fibula of my left leg just above the ankle. To this day my left foot turns in as the buggers didn’t set it straight. Anyway, this lead to 12 days in hospital with nothing but Radio 1 for company, I must have heard “Ebony and Ivory” 5 times a day. The following spring and summer was either recuperating at home in the company of “Pelican West” or once the plaster was off and I was mobile, late summer I would go to the Thames at Laleham to fish, I remember “Driving In My Car” most fondly of that time and is the song that takes me back there. All accompanied by Radio 1. A period of pop music still never bettered in my mind a perfect storm for me of time to listen, Radio 1’s peak and a whirlwind of exciting innovative, visual teenage sensory addiction. Thursdays in front of TOTP fed that addiction, pushing record on my Betamax with the end of my crutches, the thump of the off button not always in time to cut off Saville. Sundays and the Top 40, Tuesday lunchtime Top 40. My whole world and recovery around what became an obsession. “Body Talk” by Imagination seamlessly into “The Look Of Love” on my C60, no Bruno Brookes to ruin the flow. TV seemed made for me with “The Young Ones” and Saturday morning music shows.
By the end of the year back at college my pop odyssey took second place behind The Jams split and my first tentative steps with girls and one obsessed by Echo and The Bunnymen. The one remaining connection to those solitary obsessive pop days was The Associates, I brought all their singles for £50 from a lad who ended up with the EOTB girl, I got the best deal.
1982 is my year, a year I would go back to in a heart beat, a glorious year despite my injuty. In amongst it all was this, still to me the finest pop song of the era and still to this day my first thought when the favourite song question comes up. Oh Billy you were so perfect for TOTP and for 1982 you nearly wore my Beta Max out.
Body Talk was a great 1981 single. Imagination’s 1982 release “Just An Illusion” was OK, but not really up to the standard. IMO.
1982 was not that great a year for the LP, in my opinion. “Lexicon Of Love”, “Dare” and “Avalon” and that’s about it for albums.
My memory let me down there. it must have been “Just An Illusion”, in fact having just looked it up it must have been “Just an Illusion” into “Poison Arrow” on my C60. So an excuse to post my favourite ABC song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBTSM3iKufE
@mike_h
Other albums not so far mentioned
Sonic Youth – Sonic Youth
The Cure Pornography – I saw them on this tour. Brilliant, the music and tour an endpoint of ‘mark one cure’ – my favourite Cure.
Mission of Burma – Vs
And on a completely different note it is Minimalism storming the classical citadel. Steve Reich released Tellihim and I bought Glassworks – I’m betting many people’s introduction to Philip Glass. This I still play regularly 34 years later
It almost seems to obvious to mention, but Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ “Imperial Bedroom” was released in 1982. I spent the summer working on a campsite on the south coast of France, not far from Béziers. I had a just few cassettes with me, which I ended up playing hundreds of times each. Despite the repeat-play overload, Imperial Bedroom still sounded magnificent at the end of the summer. Indeed, it still does now…
Amen, his best. Despite what stripey wee fellows might say.
*waves*
Only a singe from Echo and the Bunnymen this year, but a goodie
Single even
Blade Runner, E.T., Poltergeist, Tootsie, Tron. A few good movies, but an awful lot of shite. As usual.
There were an enormous number of cinematic sequels. Rarely a sign of health.
1982 also gave us the Falklands conflict and it’s easy to forget just how dominant that was in the news. I recall several months of nothing else on the TV news. This song first came out in 1982. You might have heard it once or twice.
Yes, a big thumbs-up for Mark “Bedders” Bedford out of Madness on the double-bass on “Shipbuilding”. Very nice.
Unless I’ve missed it that’s only the second minor mention for Madness (I acknowledged “Driving In My Car”). “House Of Fun” was 1982 and on The Young ones. That fact alone is enough to cement 1982 as the greatest year for pop culture in the UK
Do I have a ghost computer that types words that don’t actually exist?
Sorry Moose, just re-checked the thread, damn my impatience. I’m an embarrassment………
It was the year the place where I worked was raided by the Australian Federal Police.
Go on…
What might we have been reading?
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ was published in October and became a big hit resulting in a radio show, a theatre presentation and in 1984, a TV series.
Roald Dahl – The BFG
Alice Munro – The Color Purple
Isabel Allende’s debut The House of the Spirits.
I’m guessing that much of our music listening was on cassette tapes.
Whatever happened to all those cassette tapes?
The songs on those Beatles’ cassettes (circa…erm…1982, triffic) were jumbled around like a boat in a storm.
Seemed incredible they’d do that at the time, seems even more incredible now.
I dare say some of those tapes will be on eBay in the next few years for £200 each, if they’re not already.
After all, they probably are now quite rare.
Bollocks, but rare; the perfect formula…dodgers are bound to want a sniff.
Ah! One of the simplest and most perfect joys of youth: scrutininising the width of the tape remaining on the spool, telling yourself Ghost Of A Chance will surely fit, then the record fading out seconds before the tape runs out – the click of the recorder as it stops the equivalent of the machine saying “you the man!”
And everyone knew you were dicing with death if you used a C120 as thinner tape meant more twists or snaps
An OCD solution:
Prepare the track listing in advance, noting the timings given on the record, and timing those where no duration is given. This will ensure maximum tape usage.
The Kenwood stereo I eventually got had a clock (rather than the 000-999 counter) on it, and so negated the pen, paper and stopwatch process
Making a mix tape was never quire as interesting again)
Ah but. Each side of a C90 lasted more than 45 minutes, that ‘more than’ being an indeterminant length of time of up to 2 minutes.
Yes … the flaw in my perfectly laid, logical plans.
I used to factor in about 3 to 5 seconds for run-in/run-out time, and would aim for around 44.5 minutes in my calculations.
The clock took away these “buggeration” factors, and explains why there was always more space than expected left
Because of course you had to rewind the unused portion of side one when you turned it over to side two..
Who were you recording, RD? The Killjoys?😉
Also the mighty “Boys From The Blackstuff” from late 82
Perfect drama from Alan Bleasdale that unfortuanatly chimed with the times
Ah yes, that featured an outstanding acting performance by Graeme Souness, as I recall.
One aspect of popular culture that wasn’t worthy of comment when the almanac was in the 50s is computer gaming. By 1982, things were booming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_in_video_gaming
The year saw the appearance of the first erotic game, Night Life.
I regret to say it was a single player game with a cumbersome joystick that was difficult to manouevre.